can itunes do this?...

[carryonplease]

sorry for the double thread but i was wondering if itunes was capable of doing the following, or something similar, somehow

my library is very organized, but my music folder for itunes is not, and i have lots of dead tracks and extra songs that i dont know where they are because i have so much music. is there a way to make itunes sort of look at what it has in the library and make a separate folder of only those songs? or delete the songs in my folder that arent in the library?

 

[GimmeSlack12]

You can do this to a certain extent. First of all, you want to consolidate your library. This will copy all music to your iTunes music folder, you'll find it under the Advanced Menu. From this point on I would recommend going to Preferences>Advanced and selecting: "Keep iTunes Music Folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes...".

Therefore anytime you add anything to iTunes (by dragging or double-clicking) that file will be moved and organized into your iTunes folder. As for removing dead tracks, that will require the help of the Doug Scripts, or iDupe (not sure if it does dead tracks).

That make sense?

 

[killmoms]

Mmmm. Toughie. Not sure about that actually. I was going to suggest consolidating your iTunes library to an external drive, but that copies stuff, it doesn't move it. I suppose you could then run a diff of the two file structures, but that'd be a big pain (and lots of duplicate data).

Does re-adding one's iTunes Library folder to an existing library cause duplicate entries of tracks already in it? I've never tried it.

If you don't care about playcounts/ratings/playlists and other things like that, you could always simply delete your current library file and re-import everything in your current library folder.

Really though, the solution here is to never touch your library's folder structure with the Finder except to copy files elsewhere—manual file management is exactly what iTunes seeks to make obsolete.

 

[carryonplease]

thanks, i use the keep itunes organized, whenever i add songs it adds the folder and songs to the itunes music folder, so i guess what i can do is make a new folder and change the itunes folder to that, and then consolidate it into that? then delete the old folder?

 

[killmoms]

thanks, i use the keep itunes organized, whenever i add songs it adds the folder and songs to the itunes music folder, so i guess what i can do is make a new folder and change the itunes folder to that, and then consolidate it into that? then delete the old folder?

Well, if you do that, it will only copy over what's currently in the library database—so if you have tracks in the old directory structure that aren't in iTunes' library they won't get copied over.

Essentially, if you were willing to duplicate your entire library to a new folder as you've said above, before you deleted the original folder you could run a diff between them and see which files were not copied over. Those would be files that weren't in iTunes' database at the time.

 

[carryonplease]

Well, if you do that, it will only copy over what's currently in the library database—so if you have tracks in the old directory structure that aren't in iTunes' library they won't get copied over.

Essentially, if you were willing to duplicate your entire library to a new folder as you've said above, before you deleted the original folder you could run a diff between them and see which files were not copied over. Those would be files that weren't in iTunes' database at the time.

mmm yes, thats what i want to do though, i dont want anything extra in my itunes folder except what is listed in my library on the itunes gui.

 

[killmoms]

mmm yes, thats what i want to do though, i dont want anything extra in my itunes folder except what is listed in my library on the itunes gui.

Well, sounds like that'll work. Just make sure you have the hard drive space for a complete (or perhaps nearly complete) duplicate of your music. Not sure how large your library is, so that's about as specific guidance as I can give you.

 

[carryonplease]

120GB external hd for the win

 

[killmoms]

Just be prepared to go make a snack/read a book/do something productive while it Consolidates—it always tends to take a while for me. Then again, my library's total size is upwards of 90GB, so...

 

[carryonplease]

i have around 25GB right now, im sure it will still take awhile. can't wait for our dorm room's first monthly music swap... it would be nice to double my collection hah.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

I tread very carefully with my library (around 40gb) because of the waiting factor on everything. I keep it in pristine order so that I know exactly what and where stuff is going on. Heck I invested in a new 500gb external just so time machine would make sure the music (and pictures) were taken care of in case I did end up doing something stupid.

Although consolidating does copy a file, doesn't it also redirect iTunes to play the file from the iTunes music folder and not the original location? I still think consolidation is a good idea.

 

[carryonplease]

you see my itunes music folder is where all my original music copies are. im not going to keep twice the music just to have it in two places. (except on my external). the original location in my case, is the itunes folder. i left the library to consolidate and i'm at work now so when i get home ill just have to take the consolidated folder, rename it again and make it my itunes folder

 

[killmoms]

Wait though. If you're not doing a diff to find stray files, what exactly is the point of this exercise? I feel like we're leaving out crucial steps (or we misinterpreted your original needs).

 

[carryonplease]

let me try to explain better. I have something like 5000 songs in my itunes library, but i have like 6449 "items" im my itunes music folder. even if it counted the folders as items, i still have music in there that i dont need/is duplicates. What im doing now apparantly takes all the music in my library and copies it to a folder, therefore i should have a music folder with 5000 songs in it. then i could either replace it or see where the extra stuff is.